BALTIMORE – After the U.S. men’s national soccer team lost a friendly to Belgium in May, a disgusted coach Jurgen Klinsmann tried to talk about what positives the Americans could get out of the surprising defeat.

“I’d rather play Belgium 10 more times than El Salvador for the 100th time because that’s where you learn,” Klinsmann said.

Klinsmann is hopeful that his team, which has won seven straight official games, is not given a similar lesson today when it meets El Salvador in a 12:30 p.m. quarterfinal of the 2013 CONCACAF Gold Cup at M&T Bank Stadium.

Asked Saturday whether he wishes now that he chose to mention another team other than El Salvador, Klinsmann said, “I think everybody understood the comment. … I just wanted to send out a message that, ‘Yeah, we have a lot of work to do.’ We have a lot of respect for El Salvador. … It’s a team full of talent, we know that.

“I think that you’ve got to give them really credit about how they worked their way through to the quarterfinals. Obviously they caused big damage to our Olympic team last year (knocking the U.S. out of qualifying with a 1-1 tie).We know that this is going to be a huge hurdle, and we are ready for it and we need to be focused and alert from the first second on.”

Klinsman and his players also are aware that many in the sellout crowd of more than 71,000 will be pulling for El Salvador. Early indications are that fans of that country’s national team could make up more than half the crowd, and supporters of second quarterfinal opponents Costa Rica and Honduras likely will be pulling for their fellow Central Americans.

“I think it’s a wonderful thing, having a sold-out stadium tomorrow and a lot of El Salvadorans supporting their team, making noise, making atmosphere, this is what you want to experience,” Klinsmann said. “I think the players will embrace and hopefully show them that we’re still playing in the U.S., and there are a lot of American fans hopefully making noise as well.”

Landon Donovan is skeptical about the possibility of have a sellout made up largely of Salvadorans. But he witnessed a similar atmosphere at the Rose Bowl two years ago, when the U.S. lost to Mexico in the Gold Cup final before a pro-Mexican crowd.

“We’ll see how the crowd is, we’re not so sure,” Donovan said before testing the field Saturday at M&T Bank Stadium. “We’ve dealt with this many times in our careers, whether it’s for or against, we just like the energy. The energy actually helps us, it’s going to be exciting.